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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25502077">we run like a river to the sea</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsarenotforfree/pseuds/secretsarenotforfree'>secretsarenotforfree</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Tree Hill</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, also is davis's middle name, as far as characters go no one's safe, basically oth one shots, because if so where have /i/ been, canonically nathan???, mainly naley but other stuff too</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 04:34:32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,415</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25502077</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/secretsarenotforfree/pseuds/secretsarenotforfree</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The moon is up and over.</p><p>(or, a collection of one tree hill one-shots)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Haley James Scott/Nathan Scott, Jake Jagielski/Peyton Sawyer, Julian Baker/Brooke Davis, Peyton Sawyer/Lucas Scott, and sorta past, but also not past</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. to wrap a lock of it around his finger</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i really wanted a place to put my various, shorter, one tree hill oneshots. so here it is! i have no idea how long this will be, but at least it will all be in one place right now! i might change the rating later, but for now.</p><p>title from the u2 song one tree hill, you know it</p><p>this first one is set now-ish, basically</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Sometimes, he swore he could watch her sleep for the rest of his life and be okay.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Nathan would lay there, on his side, awake for one reason or another when the bird calls start to trickle their way into the bedroom and fingers of light blue start to stretch under the curtains, and watch her. Drink her in. The long lashes, that little mole on her bottom lip that he’d kissed too many times to count in this lifetime or the next. Her hair was long now, long like it had been when she had come back from the tour. It’s too easy to wrap a lock of it around his finger even while she sleeps, when Haley murmurs something unintelligible and snuggles closer.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>They’ve been married for eighteen years now, and she still reaches for him in her sleep.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He knows he does the same.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Piling into bed, sinking under those sheets that smelled like the conditioner he’d bought a million times and still couldn’t tell you the exact scents, after a long flight was the best part of his being gone. Something was missing, gaping and essential, when he had to go to sleep alone, and being able to draw his wife in his arms filled that. Made Nathan whole again.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>The night lays blue and deep outside the windows of their home, there are crickets on the breeze, his incredible kids are sound asleep and Haley James Scott is in his arms.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>He closes his eyes, and he sleeps.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. this was not the plan</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>set sometime around the ravens team party at the scott house :))</p><p>sort of rated m! don't say i didn't warn you.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>The first time it happens, in high definition and full color glory, Nathan doesn’t have the time to stop it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Doesn’t have the </span>
  <em>
    <span>wherewithal</span>
  </em>
  <span>, not by a long shot because it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> that slams through him and hurtles him over the edge from the strong wristed grip he has on himself, his skin still damp from the shower he’d exited before getting into this. It takes a lot to make Nathan Scott feel like he’s done something wrong, like he’s just as degenerate as his punkass sperm sharer always like to sneer at him in his face, but this breaks through to him. This considers even bringing in shame to join the party.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He may be perverted, an ass, all of it, but he can’t deny the fact that he hasn’t come that hard in a long time. Not since he and Peyton had just begun dating, before the messed up grate of their personalities against each other started to wear away. Nathan had been quite happy with his imagined positions of what he would do to the senior who’d fluttered her eyelashes at him last week, to the substitute cheerleader who’d made him almost run a bus into a train barreling through town, to his ex, even, Peyton dark eyed and splayed limbs with her teeth buried in his shoulder so as not to scream, when it </span>
  <em>
    <span>happened</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Suddenly, none of those other women was playing in a reel from his mental spank bank, perhaps the only thing he kept as organized and thought out as basketball. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Suddenly, it was a picture of Haley James.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Russet hair and huge brown eyes, giving the kind of attention to his cock that he’d seen her direct at equations and literary analysis, at this point, too many times for him to count. In this image that his treacherous, depraved mine pulled up, she wasn’t wearing much. The poncho Nate teased every time he could was gone, and so were her worn in jeans, left with the sort of sensible set of bra and panties that he, evidently, imagined she wore and miles and miles of soft looking skin.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He pants, open mouthed and spent, towel still wrinkled uncomfortably under his thighs from where he’d been too lazy to take it off, and tries desperately to expel every stroke of it from his mind. Attempts to stop himself from thinking about his secret suspicion that under all her math talk and grammar correcting, loyal whip smart Haley James was a bit of a dirty girl underneath, and to halt the mental image that had driven him over the edge from coming back to mind with a little edit. (Icy blue, he thinks, lined in ribbon and made of mesh would display her nipples. This leads him down another path, one wherein he tries to guess their shape - small, rounded, oval, or dark, before Nathan grabs the thought in a chokehold and strangles it back.) His heart pounds in his chest, there is still a fuzziness of pleasure ghosting in his veins, and Nathan’s in shock.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Because this was </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>the plan.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The plan, was to mess with Haley, and annoy the shit out of Lucas. The plan, was to make her fall for him. To stomp on her heart and sling it around without all the grace and deftness that Nathan handled a ball. The plan was to make </span>
  <em>
    <span>her </span>
  </em>
  <span>want </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nothing about the plan included him catching anything (in this case, the hots), for her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He tries to convince himself that it’s a fluke. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A one time only thing, conjured up by a mind that preoccupied with his spot on the team being threatened and his dad’s assholery, that was drawing into a well of naked pictures and coming up blank. Haley had been an accident. Had to be.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(It happens again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And again and again and again until Nathan can’t tell if it’s just his libido that’s involved with these thoughts and feelings, or if it’s him too.)</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. may break a lot of hearts</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>future!fic!!! we love to see it</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her sons were handsome.</p><p> </p><p>She wasn’t just saying this as a proud mom (though of course, Brooke was, of course she’d make kids just as gorgeous as she was), but she’d hints of it when they were little. Jude, with his father's deep, expressive gaze, and Davis, who’s blonde hair darkened to his mother’s shade of brown, always having to be first to everything until Jude flew past. They were the inspirations of a whole fashion line, those boys, and they proved how worthy they were of it to the rest of the world as they grew. Sharp cheekbones, dimpled smiles and (in Jude’s case, at least), their mother's killer casual style.</p><p> </p><p>“They’re going to break some hearts someday.” Haley tells her over a glass of wine, the two of them sitting to the side at a dinner party the three families were having. Jamie, home from college for the weekend, is carrying a ten year old on each arm, both boys seeing him with a superheroes cape from a young age.</p><p> </p><p>Brooke smiles to herself, crosses her legs and lets her gaze skip to her husbands for a moment. He’s mid-laughter, the kick of ocean air from the beach ruffling his curls, and Julian still cuts a handsome figure a decade after they said I do. </p><p> </p><p>(She’ll always be so happy for that book, because it brought him to her.)</p><p> </p><p>“Let’s hope not too many.” She murmurs, her words fogging on the clear glass, and she half means it. Brooke’s broken enough hearts for the whole family, she thinks, but only time would tell. The world could barely handle one Brooke Davis, much less two Davis-Baker’s. Sometimes, when she was at home, she propped her head up on her hand and just looked at them. Wondered what kind of men they would become, and if she could possibly love them more than she did right this minute.</p><p> </p><p>She cheers, out loud and with many hugs and squeals, for each other their accomplishments, and honestly, frankly, lays down the law when it’s needed. Tries to make sure that Davis’s do now think later attitude (a part of her, Brooke knows) is restricted to safe risks, and to gently push Jude into believing in himself as much as she does in him.</p><p> </p><p>And then suddenly, they were growing out of their clothes faster than Brooke could buy, and the sound of cracking voices echoed about their long since converted beach home. </p><p> </p><p>(If there was anything Brooke had learned from four years in New York, it was that there was almost always a chance you could get what you wanted when you used enough zeroes, and purchasing the wall adjacent home had been relatively easy. The renovation had been longer, but it had helped, at least, something to help her feel close to her very willing to cut and saw thirteen year old sons when their teenagedom made them want to pull away.)</p><p> </p><p>They grow into the height that Brooke can only sort of reach in her tallest heels, and she realizes with a slightly breaking heart that her boys are growing up. And they’re becoming men now. The day Julian comes home to tell her a story about one of the actresses from the TV show currently shooting on their stage called the PA Boy (Jude) cute, Brooke has to wonder how many hearts they’ve broken already, and how many are yet to come.</p><p> </p><p>Davis, true to form of the eldest, is the first to bring a girlfriend home. Brooke’s rules haven’t changed too much (<em> no girls in the bedroom </em>), but she can’t help from wondering why Jude hasn’t followed his twin yet. She and Julian talk about it, whispered words in a dark bedroom, when they wrap their arms around each other and murmur in quiet voices in the middle of the night about everything they missed during the day, but she can’t figure it out. </p><p> </p><p>(Davis teases Jude still, about no girl in particular, but Brooke knows her boys. Recognizes when Davis says something that makes Jude’s shoulders freeze, all loose sable curls and a fierce hazel gaze, and thinks. Texts Haley about it, about the girl classmates and friends that Lydia and the boys share, and make guesses to pass the time.)</p><p> </p><p>The first time she sees it - that little, missed gaze between Lydia and Jude, she can’t help her smile.</p><p> </p><p>(“They may break a lot of hearts, but I don’t think Lydia’s is going to be one of them.” Brooke tells Haley, and the two cross their fingers and maybe toes.)</p><p> </p><p>Her boys are handsome, Brooke knows. But they are also good, and smart, and creative - a little reckless (Davis), a little sensitive (Jude), and all hers.</p><p> </p><p>(Her miracles. </p><p> </p><p>And she couldn’t be more proud.)</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. an all around bad guy</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>just a little thing i wrote about haley's thoughts before 1.03 and they had a real conversation.</p><p>i think it like it, so that's good. anyways...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Nathan Scott is an jerkface.</p><p> </p><p>An ass, a butthead, an all around bad guy. Whatever you want to call it.</p><p> </p><p>From the moment Haley James had dropped into the life of a moody, spiky blonde haired boy and his harried but angel pretty mother, there were some things that were just understood. One, Lucas had a brother. A half brother, who was in their same grade and had Lucas's same last night and the dad that Lucas should have had. Two, they did not talk about these things, not if they could help it. And three, when middle school kicked in and that unforgotten son started to step in the shadow of his dad's disgraceful legacy, Nathan Scott was a dick. Maybe even as much as his father.</p><p> </p><p>(<em> At least he has one </em>, Lucas grumbles into his lunch, so Haley keeps all her thoughts about haunted blue eyes to herself and minds her business.)</p><p> </p><p>This is not to say, however, that he isn't. Nathan shoves kids into lockers, punches them on the quad and heckles people in and outside the classroom, his talent and arrogance speaking for itself. She watches with a sordid fascination (nothing, she swears, like the lovesick way Lucas has been staying at skinny, edgy conundrum Peyton Sawyer for as long as she can remember) at Nathan's dumpster fire relationships, lasting for on and off weeks from sixth grade to ninth until he sort of, kind of made it with Lucas's girl. This only added fuel to the Nathan-Scott-Sucks fire in Rivercourt circles, of course, and he starts cropping up in their conversations more and more. No one has a kind word to say about him, not Mouth, or Fergie, the most soft hearted of the bunch, but she can’t bring herself to fully participate in it. She had barely met the kid, after all. Didn’t seem right.</p><p> </p><p>(After all the talk, and the hearing, she had never imagined she would actually <em> witness </em> that abhorrent behavior anywhere close to her immediate person. For whatever reason, even if Lucas wasn’t, Haley was invisible to him. It was a mixed blessing, that way.)</p><p> </p><p>But then, Lucas joins the team. Lucas joins the team, and Haley suddenly has reason to be around people she had <em> no </em> business with weeks ago and her world changes. Sixteen (almost seventeen, just a month to go - ) years of anonymity in the little bubble she and Lucas and the rivercourt boys had carved out for themselves, gone near overnight the moment he made that winning shot.</p><p> </p><p>She doesn’t quite know how she feels about this, privately, because Haley James was perfectly happy in the little corner of the world she carved out. She liked what it was made out of, of laughing nights of companionable reading in Karen’s Cafe after closing with Lucas and Karen, of laughing til her belly ached from Skills practicing his pickup lines on her for all the girls he was still too chicken to ask out, of having nothing to talk about at family dinners when Taylor and Quinn were fighting again because of a boy Taylor stole. It was familiar. It was safe.</p><p> </p><p>She wanted Lucas to have what he wanted, he really did, but she was still uncertain of where his actions were going to leave her. A worry that seems to prove itself true when she’s reorganizing the practice tests for pre-calc (<em> God, why wouldn’t they just keep them in alphabetical order like she reminded them to </em>) and suddenly, he’s there.</p><p> </p><p>Nathan Scott.</p><p> </p><p>All lanky build, high cheekbones, and painfully clear blue eyes that told her absolutely nothing. She’s never been this close to him, not when they’re both actually looking at each other and not passing in the hall, and she feels rather short. Rather unprepared, for all of it, though she keeps all that to herself. Haley schools her face into <em> distant and unamused </em>and resolves not to be charmed. Not one bit.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Well then I’m sorry too. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Damn. Haley bites the inside of her cheeks. Okay, so many he’s a crappy person with a rude sense of humor. That’s still, you know. Not the <em> worst </em> sense.</p><p> </p><p>Doesn’t mean she’s going to tutor him. She adamantly refuses, and keeps this attitude when the teacher who leads the tutoring center asks her about it.</p><p> </p><p>“I won’t do it. I don’t put my foot down often, but I won’t.” Her arms are folded, and though it’s physically paining Haley to say no to a teacher, she stays strong.</p><p> </p><p>Mr. Sheiffer studies her face. “Okay. If you feel that strongly, I’ll assign him someone else.”</p><p> </p><p>Turns out, Nathan didn’t want anyone else.</p><p> </p><p>He comes back, two days later, still tutorless, and tells her he’s going to be fine.</p><p> </p><p>A whoosh escapes her lungs that she’ll deny having, but Haley nods. “Good.” Less guilt for her.</p><p> </p><p>He raises one raven brow. One big hand curls a staples set of papers slightly, brings it up to show her. Haley has exceptional eyesight, after all, so she reads it. Almost before Nathan shows that sense of humor once more. “F is for fine, right?”</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> F is for fine.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Right? </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Such a stupid joke. Such a stupid joke that rings in the back of her head for the rest of the day, seeping into her shift at Karen's. Nathan Scott is so far from her responsibility. He was his own boy, his own cocky, arrogant, supremely talented boy, and his grades were his own business. Haley owed him <em> nothing </em>.</p><p> </p><p>She knows it's him the moment she hears <em> I’m calling for Haley James </em> because only one person has used her full name like it’s just as simple as just her first. <em> I really need your help. </em>Her heart pangs in sympathy, and Haley scolds it right afterwards, and it’s deceptively easy to say it wasn’t her and hang up right afterwards. It doesn’t help that Karen, unknowingly, makes a bit of a case for him right afterwards.</p><p> </p><p>The thing is, Hale is great at giving help. </p><p> </p><p>She’s the best at it.</p><p> </p><p>She’s only been a tutor for a year and a half but she’s the top requested one with the most repeat customers, if you can call them that. Having the patience to explain something over and over again for just one step of a math problem, keeping herself read up on subjects that she wasn’t even taking, and creating personal relationships with every one of them, that was what Haley thrived on. All worth it just for that light to go on in their eyes. So if Nathan Scott needed help, she could technically give it.</p><p> </p><p>But she shouldn’t.</p><p>Haley Bob James absolutely, absolutely should not.</p><p> </p><p>But it pricks at her.</p><p> </p><p>It sticks in her mind like one of her mothers knitting needles, and Haley doesn’t know what to do.  She can’t talk about Lucas about it (of course not) and he was usually her backboard for these things so she’s kind of at a loss. Her mom, Karen, Quinn, all people she considered for advice, flitted through her brain but none feel right. So Haley leaves Lucas at the riverfront and gets Quinn to give her a ride to the school, promising she’ll only be a few minutes. </p><p> </p><p>It is too easy to use her tutors key and get the answer key for the English class they both shared, to jump in Quinn’s passenger seat and compare it to the crumpled test he’d shoved under her locker the day of <em> F is For Fine </em>. It’s hard to see, with the darkening light of dusk, and it’s hard to pay attention, what with Quinn’s blaring of ‘Crazy In Love’ like she’s got to ride out the wave as much as she can in case Beyonce’s star burns out, but she gets a grasp of what he needs. It’s all about the comprehension, and being able to translate your thoughts, and these are skills that Nathan doesn’t seem to have. The irony doesn’t escape her that Nathan’s biggest weak spot, English, and Lucas’s strong spot. Haley wonders what that means for Lucas’s self proclaimed strength, his faithfulness, but it’s a passing thought and one that fades quickly in the wake of the decision she has to make.</p><p> </p><p>Path number one, ignore Nathan and pretend he doesn’t exist until they graduate and Lucas isn’t on the team and she doesn’t have to see him again, is not very practical. To be honest, with Nathan’s grades, it’ll be a wonder if he graduates at all, much less plays basketball. Haley doesn’t think he’s stupid, but she does think that the system isn’t geared towards minds like his. A little too active, and hard to focus on things that don’t engage every bit of his brain and not just the academic part.</p><p> </p><p>Path number two, tutor him, is much scarier. It’s foggy and unexpected, and serves to make Haley’s life more complicated. A lot more complicated. But if he needs help...it’s the right thing to do. And if she had to look back on this, she would like to think that she would be proud of herself from swallowing her preconceptions and judgements and being the better person for them both. (Haley can only hope.)</p><p> </p><p>And so her decision is made.</p><p> </p><p>“Quinny, can you keep a secret?”</p><p> </p><p>Quinn, startling blue eyes and brown blonde curls in a sloppy bun, turns down Eminem’s <em> Superman </em>and raises a brow. “Depends on the secret.”</p><p> </p><p>Haley gives her a lopsided smile. “I need you to take me somewhere…”</p><p> </p><p>Thirty-two minutes later, Quinn is parked just around the corner from Nathan Scott’s house with a promise to tell her everything and Haley is walking up the long driveway with slightly sweaty palms. <em> She can do this. He’s just a boy. He’ll agree to her terms, get his grades up, and she’ll never have to talk to him again, easy. </em>She prays to whatever God is listening that she doesn’t get either one of Nathan’s parents because she would have no idea what to say to his mom and too dumbstruck by the sight of his infamous, infamous father, and she guesses that it’s listening to her, because it’s him that answers the door. Him, looking smaller than the larger than life image she’s had of him all these years, in such a big doorway. There’s an openness in his face in his home that Haley’s never seen before, and she mentally denies that she even noticed.</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> 7 o’clock then. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Suddenly, 7 AM has become the most intimidating number of a Saturday morning in a long time, but when she turns on her heel and marches away, Haley relaxes a bit. She did it. She did the right thing, <em> she thinks </em>. The fact that for the first time in over ten years of musing, she would finally be spending time with Nathan Scott, does not escape her, and she wonders what the morning will bring. If he’s actually planning on being serious, or if he is every single thing Lucas and the rest of the town has been saying about him all these years.</p><p> </p><p>Haley James would never, never, admit to it, but…</p><p> </p><p>(She kind of didn't hate the idea of finding out.)</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. wasn’t true anymore</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>there will eventually be a part two of this from peyton's perspective that reaches into more of the future than this<br/>i make no concessions for my actions gljglk<br/>also keeping ages straight is the HARDEST thing i've ever had to do because time means jackshit in oth</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Never meet your heroes.</p><p> </p><p>Or, if you want to take Sawyer Scott’s advice, never live with them either.</p><p> </p><p>She wishes that she couldn’t pinpoint the moment when all of her belief in her father had crashed and burned, rolling downhill like a busted car with no signs of stopping, but she can. Eight, after all, was old enough to remember when her mother's eyes no longer warmed at the mention of her dad’s name, of when the times with him out of the house stretched longer than the times of him being in it.</p><p> </p><p>Her dad had been around a lot more, the first few years of her life. Constantly with her and her mom, smoothing back pieces of her stick straight blondish red hair, straight from her mom, and looking into green eyes exactly like Peyton’s. She hadn’t gotten a lot from Lucas, at the end of it - nothing much, except the squint of her automatically smiley eyes, and his infuriating stubborn streak.</p><p> </p><p>Sawyer didn’t know when his business trips for finding inspiration for his next novel started becoming longer and longer. They moved, once again, from sunny L.A. to New York where her mom started a new side of the Red Bedroom office with her Aunt Haley on the phone coordinating and Lucas nearly always out on the town. Sawyer misses the backyard of their home in L.A., the beaches and constant sun, like a warm and summertime sticky friend on her skin that she could always count on. She didn’t know when things became different, but she did know when she found out why.</p><p> </p><p>“You don’t think I notice? That you’re never <em> home </em>, any more?”</p><p> </p><p>They went out to have their fight on the balcony of their bedroom, but they forgot that Sawyer’s bedroom is right above theirs, and has a window. She’s curled in the crook of it, the sounds of the city something to cling to aside from the thrumming hurt in her mother's tone.</p><p> </p><p>There’s a beat of silence, stretching way longer than comfortable. Then her dad, halting and apologetic. “I didn’t - ….I wasn’t expecting this. To happen. I didn’t know that if I saw her again, if we spent time…”</p><p> </p><p>“Is that why we moved here? So that you could be closer to <em> her </em>?”</p><p> </p><p>Sawyer can’t see anything, maybe the top of her mom's messy curls in a bun, her folded arms if she peeks over the edge, but she imagines the sight. Imagine the heavy draw of her dad’s bushy eyebrows whenever he’s trying to figure out how to explain something, his slanted impossibly straight shoulders. She’d snuggled into them time and time again as a little girl, but now she could not remember the last time she’d received more from him than a distracted dash of a kiss on the top of her head, a fist bump while he was on his way out the door. </p><p> </p><p>“Just because she still works for my editing company, doesn’t mean I planned this. Because I swear - Peyton, you’ve got to believe me - I never meant to hurt you. I never have.”</p><p> </p><p>A shaky, drawn in breath is heard, resonating even as it floats up to Sawyer’s window, and the young girl draws her knees up to her chest in the chill of it. Digs short, painted black nails into her opposite shoulders and strains to ears to find out what it was that made her mother sound like the wind had been knocked and dragged out of her and she was struggling to get her bearings in a violent sea.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that why you dragged me here? Away from L.A., where I at least had friends, and a life, and temperature that I loved? Away from Tree Hill, from our <em> family </em> , from the place you <em> knew </em> I wanted to raise Sawyer, from <em> our </em>home?” There’s a broken scoff, and it scrapes at the bottom of Sawyer’s heart. She hates it when her mom’s about to cry. “Or maybe, just my home. It’s starting to feel like more and more like the version of you that called it that is long gone.”</p><p> </p><p>“Peyton...honey, you’ll always be my pretty -”</p><p> </p><p>“No.” Peyton is curt, but tears wobble in each of those two letters. “Save it. I should have known, honestly. You have <em> done </em> this, to women who you say you’re in love with, again, and <em> again </em>. I should’ve known that it would only be a matter of time before you did it to me too.” </p><p> </p><p>Sawyer doesn’t know what her father’s done, but she knows that it’s bad, because in her whole eight years of life she had never, <em> ever </em>heard her superhero, coolest mom in the world, ever sound like that, ever. And right next to that tree of love for her father, blooming in her chest, seeds of hate became planted as well. For ruining the happiness of the person that Sawyer loved most in the world.</p><p> </p><p>Her dad tells her the next day that he and her mother need to take some time apart, but she refuses to say goodbye to him even though it rips her in half. There is sorrow, and regret, yes, Sawyer’s seen it before, in eyes that she wonders if she’s ever truly been reflected back in, but when she watches him leave from the peek of the curtains in the master bedroom, there’s a woman in the drivers seat of the car Lucas drags his bags out to. Crystal clear blue eyes, a long, if beautiful, face, and an expression of regret and joy that Sawyer hates the instant that she lays on it.</p><p> </p><p>(She's not stupid, Sawyer Scott. She's seen the wedding video, with her in her mom's belly - sees them make promises. Hears about how her dad hadn't lived up to them. There's no question in her mind that her dad left her and her mom for another woman, and she despises how it makes her not feel good enough. How, when her dad tells her that it's not about her, or her mom, that this woman was the one for him, Sawyer wants to scream <em>why did we stop being the ones for you</em>. </p><p> </p><p>She doesn't think she'll ever trust her dad again.)</p><p> </p><p>Divorce papers are filed a month after Sawyer’s dad moves out, and she hates all of it. </p><p> </p><p>Hates the empty chair in the library that her dad liked to prop his feet up in and write when he was home. Hates the studio that her mother locks herself in more often than not to distract from the crushing quiet of a home now conspicuously missing a member. Hates that she misses her dad even while she despises with every bone in her body the lady that he left them for. Lucas still comes to see her, every weekend without fail, but more often than not Sawyer refuses to come out of the house.</p><p> </p><p>She's always been an all or nothing kind of girl, Sawyer Brooke Scott. She doesn't know how to do this thing with her dad in half measures, to deal with the happiness and pain that he inspires, warring in her heart and head. When it gets too much she folds herself into her mom's arms and they cuddle up in the armchair in her mother's studio, and listen to albums that Sawyer's been placing with careful reverence with chubby fingers on record players since she could pick things up. She falls asleep to <em>T</em><em>he Honorary Title </em> and <em> Mozella </em> to the rhythm of Peyton's hand on her back, and wakes up muggy eyed in her parents old bed with her mom after.</p><p> </p><p>(It helps more than she's willing to admit because she's <em>eight </em>and too cool to say things like that.)</p><p> </p><p>He complains to Peyton, but her mama, fierce and beautiful and strong, a slim tree with strength belying her form, blocks his way to the doorway and shakes her head. “I will not force her to do something she doesn’t want to do, Lucas Scott.” She says, the words nearly a hiss. </p><p> </p><p>Sawyer wonders if her dad knows that despite everything, Peyton’s still never said a word of negativity about him to her even after all of it - she wonders if her dad knows that Peyton cries in the shower when she thinks that Sawyer’s asleep and can’t hear her - she wonders if her dad knows that she’d employed some <em> Harriet The Spy </em>detective work and found Lindsey on Instagram, and tried to report her as a spam account to take away the sting of seeing the public photos together of her and her ‘favorite author’.</p><p> </p><p>It does <em> not </em>sting that her dad’s publishing company announces the title of Lucas Scott’s new novel two months after he moves out. She finds herself grateful for the summer, despite the mugginess that makes it awful in the city, because she’s not at school, and she won’t face her friend’s faces. One day she comes home to find her mom staring at an old photo album, fingers tracing the glossy squares. “Sawyer…” Her mom starts in that distracted way of hers, eyes focusing on hers once she looks up. “How would you feel about moving back to Tree Hill?”</p><p> </p><p>To be honest, Sawyer doesn’t remember the place at all. Not the porch her mom said was her favorite place to take a nap on in someone’s arms, not the aunts and uncles she hasn’t seen in person in over two years. She doesn’t even remember when Jamie and Lydia stayed with them even though Peyton and Lucas had both told her it happened. What she liked, however, were the stories she’d always heard of this magic place where her parents had fallen in love.</p><p> </p><p>One of those things wasn’t true any more.</p><p> </p><p>Maybe it would help if she got to see the other one with her own eyes.</p><p> </p><p>So she agrees. </p><p> </p><p>(When they start packing, Sawyer carefully folds the ratty t-shirt of her dads that she’d stolen before he’d come back to get the rest of his stuff, and hides it under her party clothes. She hugs him once, fiercely, the last time they see him, and even says “I love you” back when he says it. “I don’t think I like you any more, Daddy.” Are her last words to him, and she refuses to look back when they drive away. Her grip on her mom’s hand is just as whiteknuckled as Peyton’s is on her.)</p><p> </p><p>The road trip to Tree Hill is one of those things she knows she’s going to remember for a long, long time.</p><p> </p><p>Peyton puts in a CD that she tells Sawyer she made just before she was born, and they sing along with the windows open although neither of them can hold a tune. They go to a drive thru in every state they travel through, even if they’re not hungry, and make up a ranking system for which one’s the best. She even gets to be in the front seat for a while, a rare occurrence, and spends most of the time staring at her mom in fascination. The more miles they put between them and her dad, the younger Peyton seems to look, her hair a little more curl, her smile a little brighter. </p><p> </p><p>(Lucas texted her once an hour, telling her by hour seven that he’s tired of her snappy responses. Sawyer resists the urge to tell him that she was tired of him, too.)</p><p> </p><p>Of course, she’s asleep when they finally get there, but Peyton wakes her up in time to see the Rivercourt, lit up and, if the stories are to be believed, empty for once. There aren’t any sparkles, or anything else to make it stand out, but when she peeks her green eyes out the window it seems to glow with possibilities. </p><p> </p><p>(Sawyer makes up her mind then and there that she was going to like it here.)</p><p> </p><p>Instead of a hotel, it’s to Aunt Brooke’s house that they go, a giant, stately thing with white columns that kind of gets her a little in awe. “That’s a really red door, Mom.” Sawyer says with curiosity, tucking a long hair behind her ear. It feels good to stretch since the last time they stopped, and the two of them get their bags out of the car. The U-Haul is supposed to be there within the next couple of days, after Peyton makes sure that she likes the house they’re going to move into.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes it is, Sawyer Scott.” Peyton leans down and blows a raspberry in her daughters neck, making her laugh. Said red door blows open almost as if there was a force of nature behind it, and a woman comes barrelling out, a more regularly walking man behind her. “Well if it isn’t Mr. and Mrs. B. Davis!”</p><p> </p><p>“P. Sawyer!” Peyton’s Aunt Brooke, who she’s only seen on Facetime for years, hugs her mom like life depends on it. Julian walks up behind her, the both of them in comfortable clothes, and regards Sawyer.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re taller than I thought you would be.” Sawyer remarks, blinking up at him.</p><p> </p><p>“That’s okay, you’re much shorter.” He grins, charmingly, and she can’t help but smile back. It’s a little weird, for them to be living breathing people rather than two dimensional faces. Real Life is more HD than Sawyer was expecting, but she keeps her hopes up.</p><p> </p><p>After so long with it only being her mom and dad, barely seeing family that wasn’t her one set and then lone grandparent, it was rather overwhelming the next day to see everyone get together for the occasion of them, she guesses, coming home to Tree Hill. There’s Jamie, the undisputed leader, turning gangly and just as athletic as his dad, Logan, who’s her age, and the three babies, Lydia, Jude, and Davis, almost always seen together. Sawyer’s got a bit of a soft spot for babies, Davis especially taking a shine to her and letting her hold him without throwing up, something Sawyer thinks definitely has going for him. Uncle Nathan and Aunt Haley are just as disgustingly in love as they’ve always been, squishing her in a laughing hug between them before she can try to be cool and say no, and meeting Aunt Quinn and Uncle Clay went okay, even if Sawyer was very distracted by Quinn’s huge belly. Privately, Sawyer thinks that her Aunt Brooke is her favorite (and her namesake), and Uncle Julian is the only one who gets it when she becomes overly frustrated at the card games the other kids play so easily. </p><p> </p><p>(It’s glaringly obvious that there is someone missing, perhaps, that the person who used to swing her on his shoulders and kiss her mom's hand, isn’t there, and it hurts. Hurts Sawyer in ways that she doesn’t want to talk about. She finds a new resentment in her for Jamie and she’s terrified of it, knowing that it was her jealousy for him having what Sawyer had once thought she had, but it’s not her fault that her uncle and dad weren’t more alike. Not her moms either, who’d never done anything wrong, and who’s hand was already ready to hold Sawyers when she needed it.)</p><p> </p><p>Sawyer Brooke Scott hasn’t lost a lot of things in her life, but while she’s going through her biggest one it’s her mom that gets her through it. Her mom, and everything that she’d gained in return. </p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Home. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>Yeah. She could get used to this.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>And it’s the two of them that forge on, strong and alone, until Sawyer’s hanging out at Red Bedroom after school and sees her mom’s face absolutely change at her next appointment. She was midway through her math homework, and wouldn’t have caught it if not for the sound of a clatter. She looks up to see through the open office her mom's hand over her mouth, all fiery blonde braid and big eyes. There’s a man in front of her, tall and broad shouldered with hair you could tell would’ve curled if it had been allowed to grow longer. </p><p> </p><p>“Mom?” Sawyer calls out, craning her neck to see, to maybe hear.</p><p> </p><p>Peyton takes a weak lungful of air, and blinks again. “Jake?”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. long and lonely looking</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>who asked for more early naley?</p><p>no fucking one. oh well!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Looking at her had been a mistake.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>A big, colossal, fucking mistake that if Nathan could take back he would, but it was too late. Far, too late. He wished sometimes that he had a time machine so he could jump his old self and beat him over the head by saying unless he wanted to fall absolutely dick over ass for his half freaking brothers best freaking friend he was better off failing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Because here's the thing.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Once Nathan had looked - </span>
  <em>
    <span>really</span>
  </em>
  <span> looked, at that long, mahogany, silky hair, at her long lashes and how they fluttered when she didn't get enough sleep the night before, at that godforsaken pancho and her incredible ass in those unfashionable jeans - he couldn't stop.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He didn't ever want to fucking stop.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(What was </span>
  <em>
    <span>wrong </span>
  </em>
  <span>with him.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>What was wrong with him, Nathan figured out somewhere between macaroni and cheese being the food of the gods and the first sight of that smooth, stamped 23 at the base of her spine, was that he was in love. And not regular love, that he'd heard about, lame ass butterflies and warm feelings, this was forever love. This was, Haley James was setting up a permanent spot in his soul that he didn't remember giving her. This was, the thought of being without her scared him to fucking death. More than losing - holy shit it was still wild to say it - </span>
  <em>
    <span>basketball</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He becomes attached to her before he remembers that there was a version of him without her, and it throws him for a loop so big he was still struggling out of it. Nathan’s years still stretch out, empty and bitter and grey before him, the happy times never lasting for as long as he could hold onto them for dear life, but being with Haley spins that miracle of contentment for him like magic. He learns the curve of her waist in his arms, the tickle of her laughter on his bare chest, the sweet torture of not being able to touch her in all the ways he wanted, and every bit, every pleasure or pain, is a gift.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Nathan never wants to give it back, but fuck, was he scared of it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He was scared of how much it improved his mood when one of the dumb things he said made her smile. He was scared for the feelings that rushed through him whenever she wore something of his, of the affect her digitized words saying </span>
  <em>
    <span>Goodnight &lt;3 </span>
  </em>
  <span>had on giving him good dreams when Haley couldn’t sleep over, that once he’d accidentally imagined her last name was Scott instead of James and nearly had a breakdown in the weight room over it. Thank God no one had been there that early in the morning.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The longer he has her, the more he realizes that if this was how it was for the rest of his days, he would be happy. More than happy, even, happy, and in love, and she would be his and keep making him better for the rest of his days and isn’t….isn’t that called something?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Oh yeah.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Marriage.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Christ.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Everything he’s always known about that, </span>
  <em>
    <span>marriage</span>
  </em>
  <span>, has never struck him as promising, looking at his parents. Nate denies the deep fear that if some batshit miracle did happen and she did say yes, that he’d fuck it up somehow, just by being involved. That maybe the Scott name was a curse and infected everyone who ever touched it, that promised only ruin to once great things. He struggles with these thoughts for a long time, alone, before love starts to override them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s when Haley’s finally caving, when the small points of her nipples brush against his bare skin through the silk top he’d bought her on that first date that seemed eons ago, that the simple truth of it rushes through his mind. Forever was a long time, long and lonely looking, and he knew like he knew when a shot was going to be good before it finished leaving his hands, that he needed this, he needed this wondrous, frustrating, perfect, incredible girl to get through it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I don’t ever want to lose you.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You won’t.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Haley was right. He wasn’t. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>(Because a forever? Without Haley? Nathan didn’t ever want to see it.)</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>And he was going to do everything in his power to make sure that he never, ever did.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. a better thing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>this has been sitting in my drafts so long i have up on it leading more places. sweet and short, after that scene in season six we should all know.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>She's gentle with him.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Gentler than he says she needs to be, not as gentle as Haley wants to be, but to be frank, they hardly get nights alone. And when her heart isn't pounding frantically in her throat every moment he's out on that padded court, hurtling through the air like an accident waiting to happen even </span>
  <em>
    <span>without</span>
  </em>
  <span> the players on the other team, it will never escape her that her man is fine. Nathan's always been, to be fair, miles of dense muscle her nails knew every curve of, a broad chest and stacked arms, but Haley had seen that strength fail. Had seen it stolen. It would never take away the hard edge of his jaw, or the blue eyes that had magnetized her from the moment she'd first truly looked into them, but there was fear, a bit, under the desire.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>So she does what Haley does best.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Tried to turn it into a better thing.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"So I was thinking, tonight, I want to be the one in charge."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Nathan lifts a brow at her, interest sparking immediately. She's finished his massage, her hands still warm from pushing deep into the places she knew were sore, that scar on his back that would always make Haley's touch tremble, and he's upright again, resting against the pillows on her bed. </span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Haley clasps her hands in front of her, her smile turning a bit mischievous in the light of their bedside lamp. "I want you, to sit back," she continues, biting her bottom lip a little "and relax, and let me do all the work."</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Almost in response Nathan's hands stretch and then fist, hips shifting on the comforter. "Do I want to know what's going on in that head of yours, Haley James?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>(It's nice - it's </span>
  <em>
    <span>everything</span>
  </em>
  <span>, actually, that every time he called her that she still got a little thrill in her insides.)</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>"Oh no need to ask." Her answer is in mock seriousness, and finished out with the frisky grin he so loved to see. "How about I just show you instead?"</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p>
  <span>Haley spends the rest of the night trying to cancel out her fears and his with memories much, much sweeter.</span>
</p>
<p> </p>
  </div></div>
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